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More Scotch, Less Drambuie

By

Eric Felten

Updated Sept. 15, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET

Drambuie has long had a claim as a drink of the rich and sophisticated. Legend has it that the liqueur had its first champion in Bonnie Prince Charlie, who handed off the secret recipe to a Scottish loyalist as he lammed it to France disguised as a maid. Introduced to the U.S. after Prohibition, the liqueur of Scotch whisky, honey and spices was quickly established as a "fascinating" and elegant tipple at swanky nightspots. When a columnist for the Hartford Courant jokingly suggested in 1968 that you could gauge people's affluence and social status by the quality of their trash, he assigned high points to Drambuie empties. And yet somewhere along the way, the liqueur seemed to lose its luster, as the signature Drambuie drink -- the Rusty Nail -- fell into disrepute.

Combining Scotch-based Drambuie with Scotch doesn't require a doctorate in mixology, and the drink was around long before it was christened a Rusty Nail. Like B&B for a drink of Benedictine and brandy, a glass of Drambuie and Scotch was originally known as a D&S. But somewhere in the late '50s or early '60s, the concoction gained its new name and a new fashionability. The drink became enough of a phenomenon that in 1965 the Drambuie company trademarked "Rusty Nail" as a drink of Scotch whisky and the liqueur.

Rusty Nail

1&frac12; oz Scotch whisky &frac12; oz Drambuie or Atholl Brose

Combine with ice in a short glass. Some prefer to float the liqueur on top of the whisky. Garnish with lemon peel.

The Rusty Nail was a favorite of swingers -- that last gasp of finger-poppin' decadence before hippies displaced hipsters. The drink has never fully escaped that dubious association in America. And yet, the cocktail doesn't have nearly the same connotations in Britain, where the Rusty Nail survived well past the '60s, maintaining a currency in the green-wellie and Range Rover set.

In 1981, the folks who publish "Debrett's Peerage" -- essential reading for those who care to know who will succeed Lord Thingummy -- put out a guide to U and non-U behavior, "Debrett's Etiquette and Modern Manners." Along with advice on how to avoid embarrassment at palace get-togethers was guidance on proper comportment when blasting grouse. The first rule is to "decline the invitation" to go out shooting if one doesn't know how to handle a gun. Very sound indeed. Less sound was the notion that one should combine cocktails with the gunplay. Debrett's said that the proper rig for shooting includes a hip flask filled with "aiming juices." And on what does a shooter get aiming-juiced? "A concoction known as 'Rusty Nail' (Scotch and Drambuie in equal quantities)."

What a contrast with the reputation the drink has come to have in the U.S. William Hauptman's book for the musical "Big River" garnered a Tony Award in 1985. His next effort was a play, "Gillette," that had a brief run in La Jolla, Calif., in 1986, but wasn't performed in New York until it bowed at the off-Broadway Storm Theater in 2002. Almost universally panned, "Gillette" was notable as the dramatic debut of onetime NFL running back John Riggins, who played a boozy drifter knocking around Wyoming. It also provides a marker of the status of Drambuie's signature cocktail in mid-1980s America. Early in the play, a lonely cowboy makes time with two prostitutes at a Ramada Inn bar.

"What are you drinkin'?" he asks.

"Rusty Nails," says one of the working girls.

"What's that?"

"Scotch and Drambuie."

"You like fancy drinks, don't you?"

"We're fancy women."

A fancy drink for fancy women -- not exactly the image an upscale product wants to go for. No wonder sales of Drambuie have tumbled in the States since the heyday of the Rusty Nail. And yet, the Scotch whisky liqueur category that Drambuie dominates has still managed to attract new contenders. Macallan is selling a sweet dram called Amber, and an upstart Scottish firm, the Leith Liqueur Co., will soon be exporting an alarmingly pink whisky cordial called Strawberry Kiss.

As you might guess from the names of these offerings, the new whisky liqueurs have a target audience, and it isn't men. There are marketers of Scotch who think that women can be wooed away from vodka-based candy-tinis only by being given Wonka-fied whisky. With its Amber liqueur, Macallan is trying to win over distaff custom not only with sweetness but with female-friendly packaging. The undulate bottle is more appropriate to the shelves of Sephora than any liquor store.

Michael Jackson, the great whisky and beer scribbler who died last month, was not a fan of the Amber concept. "Madness," he called it. "It is like putting go-faster stripes down the side of a Rolls-Royce." But let's say this much about Amber: It is very good -- a very good maple syrup and pecan liqueur. My wife -- whose tolerance for Scotch is tentative, but whose taste for maple syrup was honed when her family moved to Vermont -- gives it her enthusiastic endorsement. But where's the whisky? Whatever Macallan single malt might be in the mix is utterly drowned.

I have to say that I have a similar complaint about Drambuie itself. So thick with honey and heavy with spices is the liqueur that the whisky base is lost. A raw alcohol burn struggles to cut through the viscous syrup, but there isn't much to suggest that the alcohol in question is Scotch whisky.

That is very much not a problem, however, with Glenfiddich's Malt Whisky Liqueur, which actually tastes like Scotch (albeit with an elegantly restrained touch of honey). Alas, the Glenfiddich liqueur isn't sold in the States; if you find yourself in the U.K., it's well worth picking up a bottle. In the meantime, the best bet for a traditional honeyed Scotch liqueur is a brand called Dunkeld Atholl Brose, made by whisky merchants Gordon & MacPhail using single malt from the firm's Benromach distillery. If your local liquor store isn't able to track down Atholl Brose, give the Whisky Shop in San Francisco (www.whiskyshopusa.com) a try.

You can make a fine Rusty Nail with Atholl Brose, Drambuie's trademark notwithstanding. But whichever brand you use, be sure to up the proportion of whisky to liqueur well beyond the original 1:1 ratio. And, above all, please be sure to stow the shotguns before you get at the aiming juice.